Azu's Akatsuki Tale, Ch 14: Reunion
by KorinaK
Summary: This chapter involoves the following: Four guys, a boatload of fangirls, another boatload of angry jealous guys, lots of crushing, and one amused Azu. I SINCERELY hope they aren't out of character... Enjoy!


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters… etc, etc. If I did, then the Akatsuki would be more of a big player in the story!

In case you couldn't figure it out, the beginning part is told from the Leader's point of view. I might refer to it as "P.O.V." from now on, if I need it again…

Azu's Akatsuki Tale, Chapter 14: Reunion

Some time in early August

_Our images flickered against the cold stone surfaces of the sealing statues. I sighed. That foolish child, Hidan, was complaining again about how much time the sealing process took. I merely reminded him that we were lucky to have gotten the two and three-tails. They had been a good deal easier to obtain than the ichibi._

_Aoi-san gave me a significant look. "Leader-san..." her voice rang out in my mind. "There is the matter of Azu-san. It is approaching the late summer… should Leader-san not be sending someone out?"_

_True, true. I looked around at my subordinates. "If any of you have thought of this… our little Azu needs picking up." _

_Hidan stared at me. "I'll go." _

_How eager he was. I sighed, again. He was much too hot-headed to be let loose in Konoha without Kakuzu along, and I could scarcely spare both of them. I shook my head before Deidara could even open his mouth to volunteer. He was the same as Hidan. "I think…"_

"_Leader-sama, if you're willing, I will go." I turned to look at the Uchiha. He was certainly calm enough to be relied upon. And Konoha was his home city, was it not?_

"_Then it's decided. Itachi will go…"_

Miles away, in the Haruno residence…

I woke up from a vivid dream of the beautiful, snowy place where I had seen the last of the Akatsuki. The faint light falling across my face told me it was almost dawn. Sakura lay asleep in the bunk-bed underneath me.

I crossed our room, slipping on my shoes quietly. My bag was sitting near the door, full of paints and canvas. Quietly, I slipped a painting I was working on into the bag. Just as I was about to leave, I heard her murmur something behind my back. Turning, I heard her say it again.

"_Sasuke…kun…"_

Poor girl, dreaming about her Sasuke again. I'd tried all summer to figure out who he was, but Sakura and Naruto told me nothing, as much as I had bonded with them. Kakashi-san was just as tight-lipped. Sai knew even less than me, apparently.

But then, you could never tell what Sai was thinking. His expressionless face certainly didn't help things much.

In the kitchen, I saw Sakura's mother. She was an early-bird, too. I gave her a wave and a bow as I left the house. Seeing my paints, she smiled and said, "Have fun with your art!"

Running smoothly across Konoha's paved streets, I headed towards the great waterfall near the city's boundaries. I wanted to paint somewhere with few people. And I needed to concentrate, as I needed to finish this painting quickly. The requestor had wanted it done, to be delivered as a present, by ten in the morning. The beautiful picture of Konoha in a snowfall was almost complete: I just needed to put the finishing touches on it.

Arriving at the waterfall, I sat with my feet in the river and painted with the canvas in my lap. Surely Sai would disapprove: "Azu, think! The canvas could be damaged by water, you know!" But I didn't care.

Speak of the devil. He was standing behind me, and I barely sensed him. He was obviously a skilled fighter, but I already knew that. "Sai-san, good morning," I greeted him.

He smiled at me. "A good morning for painting… but your painting… isn't snow shinier than that?" Sitting down next to me, he pointed out the problem area. Plucking my brush out of my hands, he corrected it with a few strokes. "There, that's better."

I laughed. "What would I do without Sai-san as a teacher?" He replied, "But you were pretty good even before I came along. And your paintings sell… it's nice to know you don't rely entirely on the Haruno's kindness to help you along."

"Come now," I replied. "That's hardly fair. I insist on paying rent to live in their house, though Sakura is too kind to take much money. And I do take care of my other needs myself."

"If you say so…" said Sai. "No, not like that. Come on, snow isn't purple. Use some more white, or else clean your brush better."

I ignored him. Not really, actually. The snow did look too purple. I changed it quickly.

I painted for a few quiet hours while Sai went swimming or some such. When I was at last satisfied with the painting, I looked over at Sai. Sai had taken out his ever-present sketchbook and was scribbling away in it, trying hard not to get water in the book. "What're you drawing…?" I asked. I leaned over to take a look.

He flashed another smile at me. "What does my fellow artist think?"

I took the sketchbook. "Hey… that's me, right?" It was a well drawn, sketchy picture of me painting, with a small brush in hand. "But you've done one thing wrong…"

Sai frowned. I rarely corrected him, considering he was much better than me at art of all kinds, though he rarely painted. "What is it?"

I traced the line of my forehead in the picture. "I'm much too beautiful. My eyes aren't that large, mines are oval-ish and narrower. I don't have long lashes. I'm not that curvaceous at all. And my nose is pointier than that, as well as my chin!" I grinned at him. "Or are you trying to draw an idealized version of me?"

Still frowning, he said, "That's not true. Look." He pointed in the water at my reflection in the slow-moving water. "You do look like that."

"Yeah, right." I knew he had drawn me too pretty, and he wouldn't admit it. "I look more like a boy than anything else."

Sighing, Sai said, "Fine, it's true. And you're pretty…" He stared at me. "…flat, for a girl your age. But then, so is Sakura-chan."

I laughed. "Sakura would punch you for that! Like that time she beat you and Naruto up for… wait, she did that so many times that I don't remember which occasion it was."

Helpfully, Sai asked, "Was it the time she caught us trying to enter the bathroom when she was using it?"

"Um, no, I think it might have been when you told her her shampoo smelled like a dog's."

"No, there was that time I drew her and it turned out looking like a pig."

"You… you did that on purpose, though!"

"No I didn't. I really tried. She's not easy to draw like you are. But that's because girls are harder to draw, and you look a bit like a guy."

"True. But seriously, she looked like a pig in that one. It was all fat with a huge nose!"

"That's because she looks like that!"

"Sakura is quite pretty. You did it on purpose, admit it…!"

We argued and discussed while I packed up my paints, and started walking towards a well-known teahouse in the area. "If we want to get in, we'd better get there now. You know how it's always packed, especially on weekends like today!" I said.

A teahouse is not a place for merely eating. It's more like a place for people-watching. You go there; you can stay for hours and not get bored. It's a very interesting place, you know? Neither Sai nor I were in any hurry, so we decided to just hang around.

Sure enough, the place filled up quickly with all kinds of people. Nudging Sai, I whispered in his ear, "There. Look at that old pervert. He's looking at those girls who were swimming earlier!"

Sai took a good look at the girls. "They're not all that beautiful. For example, the curve of her-"

I hit him gently on the shoulder. "You're a pervert too. No, actually, you're just an artist. You think of everything in terms of art and don't get embarrassed like the rest of us."

Sai stared at me. "But I've always wondered…" He continued bluntly," Do you women enjoy looking at naked men?"

"Sai! You are disgusting." Thinking for a moment, I smiled sweetly and said, "But maybe you do."

"I don't lean that way…" said Sai expressionlessly.

"Hey, look what we have here…!" said a voice.

Sai blinked up at someone behind me. "Oh, Hidan, Deidara …"

I almost choked on the tea. Whirling around, I saw those two oh-too-familiar cock-sure, arrogant faces. I wasn't exactly going to say I was pleased to see them, even those I completely was. Turning back to Sai, I said, "Introduce us, Sai-san!" When I next turned around, I gave them a happy smile that said "It's-nice-to-see-you-again!"

"Well, these are Hidan-san and Deidara-san. Deidara, Hidan, this is lovely lady Azu."

Flashing a grin at me, Hidan said smoothly, "Nice to meet you, Azu-chan."

"Likewise," said Deidara, smiling sweetly. He did that familiar gesture of his: sweeping his hair out of his eyes with two fingers. It's around then that I noticed neither of them had a shirt on, and both were wet.

"You were swimming earlier?" I asked Deidara with honey dripping from my voice while eying him with the "you-sick-pervert-and-womanizer, dagger-eye, roast-in-Hell, Azu-style" specialty look. Both of us were perfectly aware of a lot of young women starting to take sudden interest in our table. I don't exactly think it was me who was attracting the attention, either.

"Yes. The water's quite enjoyable this time of year," said Deidara equally sweetly, giving me the "I'm-a-man-of-course-I-like-women-you-old-hag!" look. I frosted him with the "Are-you-_absolutely_-sure-you-are-a-_man?_-oh-I-never-would-guess" look. He growled at me.

Sai conveniently left to find the owner and get more tea, leaving me alone with the two of them. As soon as he was out of earshot, I gave them nasty grins, while quietly saying, "What are the two of you doing here? Unless Leader-sama has gone senile, he'd never send you people here!"

Deidara gave me a puppy-eyed look that would have turned any other person's heart to mush. A lot of thuds as girls fainted. Almost every single young girl –actually, screw that, almost every woman, old or young- in the room was looking those two. I just eyed Deidara, giving him the "don't-even-think-about-it-buster" look. We do a lot of eye communicating, if you haven't noticed. "Leader-sama has always been senile, Azu-chan. But me and Hidan-chan here wanted to get out of that nasty place. He didn't send us, though he did send someone else…"

I groaned at his second sentence. Not that I didn't know the answer, but I asked anyways: "For what?"

Deidara smiled at me toothily. It looked mildly freaky. "What do you think?" He lowered his voice even more. _"We came for the women, of course."_

Hidan rejoined our conversation at that moment. He had been preoccupied earlier with –oh, oh, so casually, of course- draping himself in the exact way to show off his body best. There was a loud noise (somewhat like a strong wind) of girls sighing in absolute crush-dom. Smirking at me, he said in his low, manly-man voice, "I haven't had a good piece of action in, I dunno, years."

I was disgusted… but I could see how any teen girl could fall for either one of the two. In the most innocent voice I could muster, I said, "And here I thought you preferred company of a, um, different _type_…"

Said rejoined us at the moment, conveniently keeping them from saying anything more. A few minutes later, Hidan turned his head, running his hands through his hair –a few more thumps of bodies-hit-the-floor style- and said, "Oh, look who it is," in his nastiest voice.

Drifting towards us was…Itachi. Perhaps he accounted for the wave of even _more_ female interest coming our way. Maybe there were even a few males in the crowd watching us, I don't know. Obviously enough, Deidara and Hidan were less than pleased.

Deidara "introduced" Sai-san and I to Itachi. Itachi gave Hidan and Deidara a cool look that said I-would-never-be-so-desperate-as-that in one glance.

The next thing that happened was very…_ odd_.

Itachi coolly flicked some of his bangs out of his eyes, and slowly scanned his eyes around the room. His blue-black eyes blinked slowly as he stared around.

Let me explain how this works. Itachi has a way with his eyes. He can look around a crowd and make _every single lady _there think his eyes were just wandering around until they just _happened_ to settle on the female in question. Then it'll seem to the unsuspecting girl that he stares at her just a little too long, and then quickly looks away when he sees her staring back. It's a very unique and _very_ effective way of attracting ladies.

Discreetly looking around, I saw girls suddenly seeming very obsessed with fixing their hair or showing off their new tans and, ahem, _revealing_ bikinis.

Itachi ignored them, instead giving Hidan and Deidara a smirking stare. Hidan and Deidara bug-eyed him, their faces telling of their jealousy. You got to admit that that guy Itachi has style.

And I thought he was not the type to be prone to showing off in front of ladies. Hey, you learn something new everyday.

I swear, the temperature was getting hot in here… but maybe if a woman's lust is strong enough for a man, it generates heat? That would certainly explain it. And we had the not altogether unhandsome Sai-san, who certainly had a good female following himself. Every time he smiled, I practically felt a breeze as female hands were lifted to foreheads in preparation for fainting. He was watching all the eye-communicating amusedly.

Did I mention we also had a lot of young men staring at us angrily? Oh, I have no clue; I wonder why they seem so angry… Oh, no certainly they couldn't be…

_Jealous? _

No, really? Ya think?

Now we had almost everybody in the teahouse staring at us, either discreetly or openly. Either because they were part of the Sai/Itachi/Deidara/Hidan instant-following, or in many a young man's case, because they were eyeing us with jealous-dagger looks for stealing the female attention, or because (this is the remainder of people there) they were wondering what the other two-thirds of the teahouse was staring at.

God, sitting at a table with those four was like, I don't know, sitting at a table of models or something.

The morning wore away as we chatted about nothing in particular. It was refreshing to be able to banter away at will without discussing anything serious. I left soon to go deliver my painting, leaving the four guys behind.

Show-offs. And Itachi… I'm so surprised at you. I mean, honestly. Shows me, I suppose… never expect too much of a man. (Kidding here.)

Honestly, don't you ladies out there think men can be nuisances sometimes? Even if they _are_ good-looking ones?


End file.
